Chicago, Summer 2006
How great to come home this summer and have our house waiting for us! John and Pat were there already. Nancy came out to visit! We ate pizza at Gino's East; Mexican food at Luna, Pacifico, and Adobo Grill. We had breakfast at Lula's and Toast and cavatelli at Rosebud on Rush. Chicago is an all-out eatfest. We finally got around to visiting Millenium Park, to see Cloud Gate and Frank Gehry's amphitheatre. I finally read Time Traveller's Wife. In it, they describe the amphitheatre as an exploded Coke can. I think it's pretty cool.

And I don't quite get the joke, but I guess there's someone on TV who says "Uh-oh, hot dog." So we took a picture of the grafitti in Gino's for my mom.

Tricia was in Indiana at one point when I went out on a confluence adventure. There's a degree confluence really close to O'Hare airport, so I bopped down one morning and took some photos. Total suburbia. I didn't stick around long, in case the homeowners of the area thought I was a terrorist or a kidnapper or something. Here's the house that's located at exactly 42.00000 degrees North, 88.00000 degrees West.

Sam was on his way to Costa Rica and stopped by for a day layover in Chicago. We took him out for pizza and up to the top of the Hancock building for the view. We walked around downtown a little -- the Tribune building and Wrigley building, and all the rest of that cool architecture that makes Chicago one of our all-time favorite cities.

Tricia was busy taking her NBPTS test downtown one day. I went with her for moral support, then while we was in the test I took some photos of downtown and Printer's Row. I found the Rookery, the Dearborn station and the Morganthaler Linotype building.

Kelly came out to visit too, but she doesn't like her photo taken.

Boulder, Colorado

Becki and Eric got married in Thailand last year, but their family wasn't there. So they had a wonderful ceremony in Colorado this summer. We met their families and saw some old friends. Barb and Nick were at the wedding, and Katie has just moved to Boulder (so we stayed with her.)

at Katie's house, and lunch on Pearl street:

The day of the wedding was a huge hailstorm. The whole city was covered in ice!

We haven't seen Mark in years, and he lives in Lafayette now -- it's very close to Boulder. And Mark and Amy (and their kids Sam and Kelsey) were visiting him. So we had a fun barbeque and caught up with all of them.

Katie took us to a yoga studio for a morning yoga session. Boy, we had planned on doing yoga every day all summer, and we ended up doing it once. But the studio was great! Then we went hiking in the Flatirons. Beautiful!

Las Vegas

Scott and I got together in Vegas for a guy's weekend. It was Father's Day, so we worked on making our own Father's Day cards by the pool. We were staying at the Hard Rock Hotel, which has this crazy pool party. Something straight out of an MTV video. You can even play blackjack in the pool. I don't know how you keep your wallet dry.

Indianapolis

We ended up going to Indianapolis twice. We watched the 4th of July fireworks from the roof of Scott and Carrie's office building; saw Bauhaus and Nine Inch Nails (from really good seats) with Kristin, Brian, Kady, and Tom; and visited Tricia's family. We got a chance to catch up with Pam, Archie, Larry and Maryanne in Noblesville. Jake and Brian had a birthday parties, and Marsha had a barbeque at her place. And we hit the Alley Cat a couple of times.

Washington, D.C.

We visited Matt and Daryl in D.C. for a weekend. Ate at some excellent restaurants, danced at Heaven and Hell, went antique shopping at the Brass Knob in Adam's Morgan. Matt's an awesome tour guide. He's sold security equipment to all the federal buildings, so he can tell you what any building is when you're driving by. Tricia ate her first hot Krispy Kreme doughnut.

Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan

OK, so you know how I like the wacky hobby of degree confluencing. Well, there's only ONE degree confluence in America that hasn't been visited. (If you don't count Alaska or offshore ocean confluences.) So Doug and I decided to kick it's butt this summer. I flew from Chicago to Duluth and rented a car to drive to Doug's house in Wisconsin. Then we (and his brother Dean and Dean's sons) chartered a fishing boat from Captain Bud and boated out 20 miles into the middle of Lake Superior. Which is a wreck-strewn inland sea, one of America's most dangerous waters and all that. All in the name of confluencing. But we made it! And then on the way back, we killed some innocent lake trout, which is quite the pasttime of the American North. Oh, you don't just grab it on a hook. You pull it in the boat and whack it to death with a sawed-off baseball bat. Dang.

At one point, Captain Bud visited "the head" (which is seafarer lingo for bathroom). So we all got to drive the boat. It's pretty easy.

I think this map that Doug is using was actually a placemat from a restaurant.

Nearly there! It took some time to get exactly "zeroed out" but Bud was patient.

Afterwards, we stopped at Dairy Queen for a little Americana. And then back to Doug's lake house for a group photo with the whole bunch.

It's not just a bar. It's also a museum.

The town of Hurley, Michigan, has a sign that says "Home of the Fighting Midgets." I can't believe they get away with that!

Los Angeles

Our last stop before Bali was Los Angeles. We saw Ian and Jeff, Brit, Bobbi Jo, Barbara, Larry, and Ian's new neighbor Brian. Adam and Stacey flew in from San Francisco to visit. We did some fun super-touristy walks on Hollywood Boulevard. Tricia compared her feet to Gloria Swanson's, and we found Rip Taylor's star. (It's actually easier to find Rip himself -- he has breakfast at Nick's all the time. Whoo hoo hoo!)

Jeff took us on a walking tour of LA's architectural history. We went into the Elk's Club, which is being converted to a hotel. They filmed the swimming pool scene in Cocoon in the basement pool. The guard was super-nice, and even gave us a tour of some of the hard-to-find spots, like the gym on the top floors and the ballrooms. He told us some spine-chilling stories about the ghosts they encounter when they work the night shift. It's certainly got that eerie empty-hotel feel, like The Shining.

I wanted to see the Bradbury Building (where much of Blade Runner was filmed) and the Million-Dollar Theater. Jeff knows all about the old cinema halls of LA, even the ones that are swap meets and underwear shops now.

We went to brunch at El Cid's Sunday Jazz Brunch, where 89-year-old Jerri Thill (and friends -- Marty and Stacy) play a jazz accompaniment to your omelettes.

And it wouldn't be a weekend in LA without a night at Marix, or the new place we discovered -- the Velvet Margarita.

And then it was time to leave for Bali. . . .